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Lessons from a Burglary in Downtown Denver
Allow me to share with all of you a very big lesson tonight.
My son, Garrett Johnston, and his friends’ home in downtown Denver (the Witter Cofield District) was broken into tonight. North of $2,000 of cash and merchandise was stolen tonight.
Those of you who have been victims of property crime know this experience well. And you know the result. Nothing happens. Nothing. And their Labrador was totally, TOTALLY worthless.
The same will be true in steroids in the progressive social justice warrior neighborhoods of downtown Denver. After 45 minutes of being called, the police hadn’t shown up. He’s called them THREE TIMES. And consistent with the George Soros-Larry Krasner attitude of justice, they have other priorities. Justice has been redefined. Maybe if they knew that he was Hispanic?
As they still wait for the police to show up, I have some advice for all of you.
1) Don’t let your children move to downtown Denver or any high crime area. Baltimore is worse, as are many cities.
2) Never buy or obtain a Labrador dog for protection. They are totally worthless.
3) While no one was home, someone could have been. Train your children how to possess, secure, and shoot firearms. I am so proud that both of my sons have done so. I am so prepared to terminate any scum that may break into my home, with no hesitation or reservation. But be sure to secure your firearms so that they’re not stolen.
4) While my son is close to a minimalist, teach your children basic common sense. Don’t keep large amounts of cash around. Secure your most valuable possessions.
5) Marijuana and drug legalization are major drivers of this crime. Do not support any candidate, political party, or legislation that legalizes drug use. Colorado is living proof.
POSTSCRIPT:
OK, my son is mad at me for criticizing their beloved Labrador. That’s fine. But he said I cannot blame Denver for the crime they’ve experienced not once, but twice (a roommate had his truck’s wheels stolen and the vehicle left on blocks just a couple of months ago). The fact is that Denver and Colorado, unlike the United States in recent years, has seen a steady increase in property crime the past several years, including before and since recreational marijuana was legalized in 2013. Check out these charts. While not entirely comparable, and acknowledging Colorado has had a notable increase in population (growing at a rate of about 1.85% per year), the trends are unmistakable.
Yeah, probably just licked the burglar. Get real protection:
That’s dangerous. Leave the firearms to the police who have been trained to use them and who have the proper policies and procedures in place.
This is sarcasm, by the way.
That seems like a bit of a leap. What evidence do you have for this assertion?
Labradors are great dogs for pets and hunting. Not guard dogs. For a guard dog, get something aggressive and noisy. Rottweiller. Rhodesian Ridgeback. Doberman. There are lots of aggressive breeds. I like Ridgebacks myself— very protective and territorial, terrifying, yet playful and friendly with friends and family.
Probably little direct evidence, but it reflects the attitude of such liberal places. Keeping all our drugs illegal obviously doesn’t work, it just makes traffickers rich, leads to violence, spreads the stuff among easily manipulated youngsters and distorts and makes law enforcement expensive. We have to treat these things and all other dangerous harmful narcotics the way we treat cigarettes, legal but no advertising, make them even more difficult to use in public. Attractive packaging is advertising, so are commercial displays in stores that sell them. We let marijuana in the door as stupidly as we could.
That is awful – I am wondering if a very loud alarm system would be a deterrent? Do they have enough police?
Yes when seconds count the police are a mere minutes away.
That’s the thing. Marijuana has always been in widespread use in Colorado since way before legalization (Mollie’s story about not even knowing it was illegal when she rode a chairlift with a pot smoker. She was 14 at the time). I think it’s just as likely this burglary happened because it’s Denver and it’s been run by Democrats since 1963. Neither are particularly satisfying explanations.
It’s possible there is a link, just like copper theft and meth use (around here).
Question: does your son not own a safe?
Our cocker spaniel was worthless when it came to guard duty. We knew that the first time she barked at the UPS guy after he dropped off a package and was driving away . . .
Our Collie barks at people across the street and we have to keep blinds closed because of it.
SHe is good at alarm, but that is no good if we are not there.
Drug use leads to crime. Just because it is legal does not mean addiction does not lead to other crimes.
Pot should not be legal. I say this from years in the field.
If you get a poodle, you can leave a gun out and train the dog to shoot intruders. Gun storage laws generally apply only to prevent kids from using the guns, not dogs.
You need to connect sentence one with sentence two somehow.
Another 500 comment post, coming up!
I have spent a quarter of a century in the field of behavioral health. In that time, it has become clear to me that pot is not harmless. Drugs are not harmless, and drugs do not only hurt the user. We have whole posts railing against porn, but have any rail against drugs, and watch out!
I am not going to post a bunch on this subject, because libertarians seem to think addicts are rational.
Spare us!
I’m really sorry, Buckneldad. Reading between the lines, I can tell you really want to go kill somebody, and I don’t blame you. Being the victim of a crime is awful—weirdly humiliating—and having someone victimize your child (however grown and capable) is somehow worse.
And having no one show up is…terrible.
Even when they can’t really do much for you, having the police show up and commiserate helps a bit. When my husband and I were robbed in Paris, the cops couldn’t do anything for us, but they were sympathetic. They allowed us to feel a little less vulnerable. Even so, I fantasized for months about evil traps I could set for the next bastard who dared to try taking my wallet (razor blades and fishhooks featured heavily).
It is definitely worth your son’s reporting the crime and registering a complaint about the no-show.
What kind of field, Bryan? 🤔 (Yes, I know, psychology and addiction treatment, but phrasing.)
We were burgled while at work probably 25 years ago (Colorado Springs). We figured it was kids because they took our small electronic devices — cameras, CD players, etc.. and all the jazz and classical CDs kids likely wouldn’t listen to. The police sent a couple detectives to talk to us, but, eventually, it was a citizen who lead to their arrest. They did the knock-and-see if someone answers while he was in the shower. By the time they broke into his house he was on the phone with dispatch and the police were on their way.
Now, Mr. C just happened to have marked the cases of our CDs with our surname initial and he decided to stop down at the CD swap store nearby (remember those?). He found our CDs and the clerk remembered the kids who came into the store to sell them, so they were already suspects when they were arrested. We recovered most of our stuff and received restitution checks periodically from the ring-leader who was an “adult” (over 18) for a couple years afterward. This was long before pot was legalized and seemed to work out the way it’s supposed to. Thankfully no one got hurt.
I imagine this has to do with the herding instinct. Those people across the street are not with the group! They have escaped!
A friend of our had a collie, and when we’d be visiting, that dog would try to prevent us from leaving. If we headed for the door, the dog would bark at us or try to get in our way.
Stay with the group! Stay with the group!
A lot of things are harmful. That doesn’t mean they should be made unlawful. Sometimes there are arguments why they should be made illegal, which is what was lacking from your paragraph.
The best combination we have had was a terrier mutt from the shelter and three purebred deerhounds. The terrier would bark at anything and that would get the deerhounds going with their loud barks. They are large dogs, but wouldn’t hurt a flea. The terrier, on the other hand was the one to watch.
It may be true that the amount and nature of crime forces the Denver PD to allocate resources, including de-prioritizing taking reports on property crimes, particularly at certain high crime periods (certain times of day or certain days of the week).
Also, the general priorities of the police in a high density urban environment may differ significantly from the general priorities of the police in a residential suburb or a rural town. Until recently, I lived in a mostly moderate to high income suburb of an upstate New York city that had very high poverty and a lot of gang activity. In talks to groups at our church, the police chief of our suburb repeatedly noted how different policing priorities were in our suburb as compared to the city. He even said that he was reluctant to hire officers who had spent any significant amount of time as officers in the city because it was so hard to readjust their thinking to the suburban priorities. [His specific example was that in our suburb if an officer came across a person with a disabled car at night, the officer was to stay with the person until mechanical help (tow truck or friend) arrived, unless the officer received a specific call for some other issue. But in the city, the police responded only if it was a crime in progress or someone was bleeding. Taking reports was very low priority, and might not occur for hours.
It’s like the fire department. If there’s a five-alarm fire downtown, it’s unlikely your lawn mower on fire is going to get a truck sent . . .
Our detective (violent crime and robbery) daughter-in-law agrees, perhaps for different reasons: where 10 years ago there was a wide spread of circumstance for her “business,” now substantially all is drugs and/or gang related, gangs being the principal facilitators for the drug trade in her mid-sized city. And, where neighborhood policing is diminishing, gangs are expanding because no one is around to stop the low level casual sellers.
@soupguy, Another place of (perhaps) known risk for your son and his friends/roommates is casinos: recently a friend’s son and his pals were mugged and attacked in a casino hotel (Boston suburbs) after a night of gambling. 3 thugs (same age group: mid-20’s) broke into their room(s) after they left the floor, beat them up and took their cash winnings. Beat the tar out of them (all strapping, healthy, athletic guys but hardly used to fighting to defend themselves.) The hotel security didn’t respond to phone calls and when the local PD came they indicated in was a known problem and seemed to know of the perps from the description. Since it’s Boston, it’s young men from the Dominican Republic and the local DA’s and judges won’t prosecute or sentence because “ICE.” Our friend and the hotel are in negotiations over redress.
Maybe you need a French Bulldog.
Play the ball, BG.
I’m a libertarian. I don’t think anyone should smoke pot. I think it is quite harmful, in a lot of ways. I don’t think addicts are rational.
But I live in a state where pot is legal, and the world ain’t come to an end. The people that smoke pot, smoke pot. The people that don’t, don’t. The only difference is that now some of them post videos of themselves doing it, on Facebook.
Doing things which harm others should be illegal. It is amazing to me how libertarians cannot see how drug use by one harms others.
Then again, you guys don’t think noise ordinances should be a thing.
No.
Unfortunately no one got hurt, specifically the perps.
We do not punish harshly enough.
Find them, and lock them away for 5 years. Fill the prisons with these low lifes.
Establish order by wiping out crime. If they are locked up they cannot steal.